Claim Verification

This skill defines the rules for verifying factual claims in marketing content.

The Golden Rule

No citation, no claim.

Every factual statement must be traceable to a source document in the corpus.

What Counts as a Factual Claim

These types of statements REQUIRE verification:

Statistics and Numbers

• •"40% reduction in security incidents"
• •"500+ customers trust our platform"
• •"99.99% uptime guarantee"

Specific Features

• •"Supports SSO and MFA"
• •"Integrates with Salesforce"
• •"Real-time monitoring"

Comparisons

• •"Faster than competitors"
• •"More secure than traditional solutions"
• •"Reduces costs by 50%"

Customer Results

• •"Fortune 500 companies use our platform"
• •"Teams have reduced ticket volume by 40%"
• •"Enterprise customers achieve ROI in 90 days"

Certifications and Compliance

• •"SOC 2 Type II certified"
• •"GDPR compliant"
• •"ISO 27001 certified"

What Doesn't Need Verification

These types of statements DON'T require verification:

Opinions and Beliefs

• •"We believe in..."
• •"Our vision is..."
• •"We're excited to..."

Invitations and Calls-to-Action

• •"Join us for..."
• •"Register now"
• •"Learn more about..."

Future-Oriented Statements

• •"You'll learn how to..."
• •"Discover strategies for..."
• •"Explore approaches to..."

Generic Industry Facts

• •"Security threats are increasing"
• •"Remote work is changing how teams collaborate"
• •(Use WebSearch for trend validation if needed)

Verification Process

Step 1: Extract Claims

Identify ALL factual claims in your drafted content.

Step 2: Call verify_claims

Use the MCP tool with:

• •claims: List of all extracted claims
• •source_chunk_ids: List of chunk IDs from your retrieve_context calls

Step 3: Analyze Results

For each claim, the tool returns:

• •supported: true/false
• •source_id: matching chunk ID (if found)
• •similarity: confidence score (0.7+ is strong)
• •quoted_span: exact text from source

Step 4: Handle Failures

For unsupported claims, you have two options:

Option A: Remove the Claim Before: "Our platform reduces incidents by 75%." After: Remove entirely.

Option B: Soften to Opinion Before: "Our platform reduces incidents by 75%." After: "Our platform is designed to help reduce security incidents."

Never leave an unverified factual claim in final content.

WebSearch Constraints

WebSearch may ONLY be used for:

• •Trending topics and hashtags
• •Current event timing verification
• •Industry trend validation

WebSearch must NEVER be used for:

• •Product features or capabilities
• •Customer statistics or results
• •Performance claims
• •Anything that should come from the corpus

If you need factual information that isn't in the corpus, you cannot make that claim.

Citation Format

When drafting, cite sources inline:

"Our platform supports SSO, MFA, and lifecycle management [source: chunk_abc123],
helping teams achieve 75% reduction in identity-related incidents [source: chunk_def456]."

In the final output, the claims_table tracks all citations:

{
  "claims_table": [
    {
      "claim": "Our platform supports SSO, MFA, and lifecycle management",
      "source_id": "chunk_abc123",
      "supported": true,
      "quoted_span": "Key features include SSO, MFA, and lifecycle management"
    },
    {
      "claim": "75% reduction in identity-related incidents",
      "source_id": "chunk_def456",
      "supported": true,
      "quoted_span": "Fortune 500 customers reported 75% reduction in identity-related security incidents"
    }
  ]
}

Verification Thresholds

The verify_claims tool uses embedding similarity:

• •0.7+: Strong match - claim is supported
• •0.5-0.7: Weak match - consider revising claim to match source more closely
• •Below 0.5: No match - claim is NOT supported

Common Mistakes

1. •

   Overstating source material

   • •Source: "Can help reduce incidents"
   • •Claim: "Guarantees 100% incident prevention"
   • •Fix: Match the source language
2. •

   Inventing statistics

   • •Claim: "90% of users prefer our solution"
   • •If not in corpus: Remove or soften
3. •

   Assuming industry facts

   • •Claim: "The average breach costs $4.5M"
   • •If not in corpus: Either find a source or remove
4. •

   Extrapolating from examples

   • •Source mentions ONE customer's results
   • •Claim: "All customers achieve these results"
   • •Fix: Use the specific example only

Quality Assurance

Before submitting final content:

1. •Run verify_claims on ALL factual statements
2. •Confirm every claim shows "supported": true
3. •Review quoted_span to ensure claims match sources
4. •Remove or soften any unsupported claims

Zero tolerance for unverified claims.